Course Plan: In this course we will study functional programming.
In the two previous introductory courses, CS141 and CS142, we studied
a particular type of programming paradigm called imperative or procedural
programming. The functional paradigm differs from the imperative paradigm
in the way one views computation. The imperative style treats computation
as operations performed on state variables whereas the functional style
treats computation as functions operating on values. Benefits
of the functional approach, among others, are the clean and direct approach
to program design without introducing unnecessary side-effects. Typical
well-written functional programs are easier to understand, simpler to
debug, and have a simple proof of correctness. Recursion and higher-order
functions will play an important role in our exploration of symbolic
computation in functional programming. Other topics include streams
(infinite list structure) and generic procedures. This course will use
a language called Scheme, a dialect of Lisp, as an example of a functional
programming language. Some of the assignments will deal with applications
in machine learning and related areas.